Buzz Canuck

Agent Wildfire - There's a New Site in Town and She's Looking Good...

There's an adage in the service industry that you are your own worst client.

I confess, it's true. You spend so much time on your client's work that you take your eye off your own. Crossing fingers and barring no other client commitment, we will be launching our new shiny corporate site later this week and moving past our cobwebby 2 year old site.

Does this change what we've doing as Canada's Word of Mouth experts? Not really.

But with new programs, a new office, new staff and new clients, we thought it was time for a change.

Based on your feedback, we hope you'll find our new site more appealing for the following reasons:

- for the user experience addicts - it will be an easier navigate menu with consistency of layout

- for the design enthusiasts - better, more consistent imagery that's easier on the eyes

- for the marketers who get it or want to get it - we'll be providing better explanations, stats and quotes on what we do and how it can help you

- for the social media crowd - we will be launching a new corporate blog that will be broadcasting what's going on inside Agent Wildfire, freeing up Buzz Canuck to muse about industry devbelopments at large

- for the progressive marketing types - we will be launching and profiling a full ensuite of programs we are launching in time for the holidays and 2009

- for the survey junkies - we will be launching a 100 pt. survey that shorthands how word of mouth-able your brand really is and what type of WOM it lends itself best to

- for the business owner - it will explain to you more clearly the 6 branches of servcies and 30 types of program we offer

- for the word of mouth student - it will provide a resources area and an opportunity to participate in Wildfire groups and associations

- for the directionally challenged - it will provide much better directions to our new pad

- for the people people - it will explain what types of people and partners work with us and given a number of great new hires, tell a story of the hothouse of expertise in the Chateau Agent Wildfire

Shortly on the heels of this development will be the launch of something called Influencers in the Know - a Canadianized version of Alltops, PopUrls, PSFK and Blogs.com mixed together.

We will also be relaunching The Influencers for November - providing superior multimedia content, much better design and RSS links and a superior registration process and profile area and a more continuous stream of activity

That, on top of our impending tour of PR comapnies and ad agencies and four other proprietary programs we're selling in and launching for 2009 is keeping us busy at Agent Wildfire - we're just trying to be a little selfish and service ourself. 

 We hope you enjoy our new site and it's more effective in helping you pick up that banana phone and give us a shout to service your word of mouth marketing, grassroots media and influencer-driven insight/innovation programs.

Agent Wildfire - Creating Fires for Holiday 2008 and 2009

Three weeks since by last post, shame on me...any blogger worth their salt knows that 3 per week is the absolute minimum to maintain the ADD-riddled world of social media attention.

My only excuse...we've been busy starting some fires for the holiday season and next year...for the listing of Wildfire developments and the occasional shameless self-promotion see below.

Beyond a number of new clients that have dropped in our lap the last couple of months and a few word of mouth programs and community launches - we are also looking at a number of new programs that will position us well as Canada's Word of Mouth Expert for 2009.  In no particular order:

- On the social media front, Agent Wildfire will be launching its own blog to deal with the news, announcements, job openings and events that are all about my company, leaving Buzz Canuck to be fancy-free to talk about all the word of mouth subjects under and above the radar

- on buzz media launches, we are planning one micro launch a quarter next year behind Canadian-specific influencer-driven marketing/media initiatives designed to get our clients noticed and talked about:

The Sisterhood of Influence - for connected, savvy Canadian women
Generation GO - for active people who live in the city
TrendCity - for tastemakers and trendspotters well ahead of the mainstream
Alpha Bartender Network - for urban ringleaders who serve up buzz

If you are an enthusiastic outgoing person in any of these areas, please let us know and we would love you to join our efforts in some capacity.

Give us a call, get the details by signing up for our Buzz Report or join our media/PR tour in October/November. Category-exclusive opportunities await.

We are relaunching our Agent Wildfire and Influencer sites to add more functionality and design appeal.

We are also going to be launching the beta of something called Influencers in The Know next month - a hybrid of influencer content and RSS aggregation of only the leading edge content on the web specifically designed for Canadians. We are interested in grassroots celebrities and influencers interested in sharing us their top 10 sites/blogs for the best edgy content - let us know.

We are hiring for a number of key full-time and freelance positions:
- Word of Mouth Program Leaders
- Editorial Interns
- Guest Bloggers
- Graphic Designers
- Web People
If you are to use Sarah Palin's words "mavericky" and Obama's words "say YES WE CAN to client opportunities" and McCain's words "want straight talk in marketing" and Biden's words...what does he say anyway?....send us your best attempt to get noticed and talked about through the stack of resumes - apologize in advance if we don't always get back quickly.

We are also hatching a League of Kickass Network event hopefully for November. I'm quite excited about this as we wrangle a name brand author and CEO to take the gloves off in debate . If you're a senior marketer, media, business executive or digital geek and you are suitably Kickass give us a shout and let's get you on the list.

We will be hosting a road trip across cities Marketing 2.0 for the Executive - a conversation-worthy, safe haven overview for executives willing to embrace this arena but not knowing where to go next.

We are about the finalize our white paper on "Word of Mouth Marketing 2009" - a check in on marketer attitudes and beahviours with WOM, launch our presentation and start our community-based white paper "It Takes a Community to Build a Brand".

I'll also personally be  participating in Marketing Week events and hosting a panel of 6 experts on social media...yikes...look forward to some dust ups, insight and some "keeping them honest" Anderson Cooper like moderating in that one.

And in other predictions - Obama wins by 7 pts, Harper gets in by a slim minority, Green Party breaks past 11% of popular vote, Red Sox win the Series again (yeah!), The TSE bottoms out at 8.500, Leafs win only 24 games this year and retail sales will drop 6% year over year at Christmas (bah humbug!).

So our silence here has not been without productive distraction...apologies to Buzz Canuck Nation - we'll try to let it happen again.

Word of Mouth - Monopoly Edition

"From Mass to Grass" Rolls Out

Looking forward to seeing an enthusiastic crowd at tomorrow's "From Mass to Grass" Word of Mouth conference.  I'm excited about bringing some fresh grassroots stories to light through some amazing, made-in-Canada , word of mouth marketing successes.

From big beer and airlines, to small labelling and 2.0 companies, to altruistic and profit-driven and some of the best B-to-C and B-to-B examples, if you are at all interested in the progressive side of marketing, media and research in Canada - get yourself down to watch and glean the insights.

If you are already going and would like an up close and intimate with some of the speakers the night before drop me an email and I will tell you where we're hiding out over a few beers.

Over the next couple of weeks, I look forward to providing an "7 Questions with" interview format with the majority of speakers and moderators who were at the event. See you there.